Pipeline backer says producers are extracting oil, but have fewer ways to ship

TERRACE, B.C. – There is a growing imbalance between oil supply and delivery in Canada and a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers says doing nothing is not an option.

The association’s lawyer, Keith Bergner, told the review panel weighing the Northern Gateway oil pipeline in Terrace, B.C., that producers are finding themselves with product on their hands and no way to ship it to buyers.

Bergner says more pipeline capacity is needed and he urged the panel to approve the pipeline project that would deliver oil from Alberta to a tanker port in Kitimat, B.C.

A lawyer for the pipeline’s funding partners Cenovus and Suncor challenged suggestions that the bitumen should be processed in Canada, telling the panel that it is not the role of the federal regulatory body to interfere in market decisions.

A lawyer for the Haida Nation told the panel that some of the claims by the proponent, Calgary-based Enbridge (TSX:ENB), around oil spills are “ludicrous.”

The panel is hearing final arguments over the next two weeks in the final phase of the hearings.